Damsel Quest

MURKESH DIDN'T MIND THE HEAT.

He grinned as the sting of the sun as it bore down on the village like a branding iron, causing the sweat to wink into his eyes, and the stick in his hands to shred itself into little threads of bark that stuck to his skin–but he was on a mission. Two experience. That's all he needed. One day where he gained two ass-forsaken experience points. 

The training dummy stared back at him–oblivious to Murk's resilience. Little black eyes dabbed into a patch of burlap and another streak to serve as a mouth, Herqlion the dummy took his beating with a smile. That smile chipped away with the heat and the daily beatings, but it never wavered. Murk could be that way. He could shrug off the difficulties and frustrations of growing up in a forgotten desert town at the very edge of the empire. Every swing brought him closer to an experience point. Every experience point got him closer to leveling. Every level pulled him closer to freedom.

"Alright, Herq, here it comes."

Murk moved his weapon overhead. All of his power climbed into his forearms, the full might of his strength clenching into a powerful smite as he brought the crude weapon down onto Herqlion's head. The burlap split. Herqlion's insides exploded in a tired little cloud of dust. Dirt and pebbles danced to the ground, spilling out of the victim's open corpse. The other claypitters turned their heads.

{Training Dummy: 1 exp}

The heat and tension evaporated, replaced by the cool breeze of accomplishment. He dropped the stick and pumped a fist in the air. "Woo! Suck it Skav!"

A skinny boy approached, carrying a switch and dressed in the same scratchy tunic. "You got it!?"

"Yeah! Just now! One right after breakfast too!"

"Tied for the record, then. That's how we do it, Murkesh! You hear the Ferz? Tied for two!"

A red-haired boy frowned in their direction. He was taking the heat in a decidedly less graceful manner. Shining and red in the unforgiving sun, the boy flexed his disproportionately large biceps and started swinging harder at his own Herqlion. The sack burst and the boy waited a beat, hoping to get his own parenthetical sense of experience gained, but nothing. He grumbled and picked up the dummy, then scooped the insides back in and tried to stitch it up right there on the spot.

"That's how we do it, Skavin!"

Murk picked up Herqlion's face and cradled it. "I appreciate your sacrifice, sir."

"Herq and Murk! I can stitch him together tomorrow. How close are you to 16 anyway?"

"Less than a month now. It's been a while."

"How long?"

"About 14 months and 12 days. But I'm not counting, that would be pathetic." He threw a cheesy smile at Skavin who returned it.

"Impressive counting. Flexing that extra cognition again."

Murk deflated, suddenly reminded of the discord behind his motivation. His arms felt small, weak, skinny, especially compared to the young man standing before him. That young man had experienced a proper adolescence. One in which his parents guided his attribute rithms along with Yretian principles. Five vitality to stave off illness, five cognition to hold a conversation. Just enough to cover what rural life demanded of simple folk. But Murk's mother had tipped the scale, giving him an extra cognition instead of the vitality he needed. A shortcoming Murk had to rectify at his own expense while the others pumped everything into strength. He would be perpetually behind. Always fighting longer, but finishing last. Always working harder, but gaining less. It sucked all of the joy out of leveling, and he was determined to bring it back.

He collected the rest of Herqlion, building his resolve before speaking again. Now his lips were chapped and desperate, enthusiasm stealing all the moisture as it left his body.

"I'll get double exp. I'll catch up to you guys."

"I know you will, buddy. You'll catch up. Then you'll pass everyone. Charm some merchant's daughter, get her to stay here, pop out 12 kids and start a legacy." Murk feigned a gasp, a little life returning to his face. "You hungry? I already got my one exp today, and I don't want to be out here anymore. Let's go celebrate!"

---

At dusk, teenagers went into the desert to break things. Specifically clay. All the discarded pieces that came out of the kilns ugly or misshapen. Stuff no merchant would buy and no Yretian could use. Breaking pots was a tradition that had started when they were kids and persisted even onto the cusp of adulthood.

Murk's eyes were closed. Presently, Tillop's tongue was swirling around in his mouth and he had one glorious handful of her breast. Their lips smacked with satisfying slops of wetness, and beneath his palm he could feel her nipple firming up. Clay smashed against sandstone in a vibrant punches that crashed and sang, followed by the distant cheers of dumb teens. As far as romance goes, this was the best Yret could offer.

Tilly's dress was modest. One piece of rough blue fabric, cut and threaded together in a haphazard way that left very much to the imagination. The greatest feature, however, was that it was thin. Perfectly so. Rubbing his fingers on the cloth still gave the sensation of skin on skin, but with more texture. A bumpiness that tickled the right senses and jiggled his fancies. Her nipple pushed upward through that barely-there layer of fabric and she moaned as he pinched it.

Her whimpers cleansed him of that nagging in the back of his head, the voice that said he was too small, that she couldn't really want him. He always felt big when her breath caught, when she shook a little under his love taps. But the stimulation did little to drown out the noise of idiots breaking things. 

Tilly yanked her tongue out of his mouth. "Shut up over there!"

Murk pulled her back in close, his hand tight around the neckline of her dress. "Don't," he said. His voice barely carrying passed her ears. He tried to push his tongue into her mouth but clipped it against a snaggle tooth hanging from the left side of her mouth. He twitched, shocked by the electric feel of the strange shape, then recovered his composure and moved back in. 

"Ey! Murk and Tilly are having sex!" a voice cried out.

She moved out from him again. "No we're not!"

"We can go somewhere else. Why are we even here anyway? Breaking pots is stupid," Murk said.

"We're here to celebrate you! You're amazing!" She rubbed her hand up his bicep, shaping it like the clay she worked all day. "You're putting them all into strength when you level?"

It had the appearance of a question, but felt more like a command. 

Murk shrugged. "I . . . you know."

She raised an eyebrow. "What, you're not getting ambitious on me are you? You want to throw more into cognition? Become the mayor?" She gestured broadly to the loose collection of wooden shacks of Yret. There hadn't been a mayor in generations. All in all, there had to be only six structures in town, and that generously counted Pesh's place which had no fourth wall, only a curtain tied to an old rope. The others weren't much better–shingles fell from bowing roofs, there were holes left in the walls from brawls that took place years ago, and the floors were little more than compacted dirt. The only structures not falling apart were the humble kilns that glowed in the day's dying light. It didn't take a cognition rithm of six to run a place like Yret. Technically, with no actual leadership in place, the skills and attributes necessary for running the place were zero.

"Of course. What else would I do with it?"

"Great." She brushed the hair out of her face. Her fingers were lithe and precise. It turns out, when your future involves shaping pottery day in and day out, there's not much else you need beyond dexterity. Pots upon pots upon pots. Big and wide ones for grain, stout ones for rice, tall ones for water. Traders brought seeds and left with lots and lots of pots. It was an ecosystem of pure utility, pressed into existence by squeezing strength and dexterity out of its youngest participants. 

Tilly squeezed his arm again, a grimace forming on her face. "You know I don't mind that you're a little behind now. I mean, if being a little smarter means you have days like today, then that means you're leveling up twice as fast as anyone else!" She kept squeezing his bicep. There was no affection in the touch, only calculation. She was a prospector searching for gold.

"I'll put it into strength," he said it like he was convincing himself. "I will."

She gave him a look. "But?"

"Well," he hesitated, taking a moment to study her. As he progressed closer to leveling she had become more intimate and passionate. She laced her fingers into his and locked into his eyes, forcing him to smile in spite of the thoughts that swirled inside. Thoughts that would disappoint her. 

The sunset cast the world in gold. Her tan skin hummed in the sunset colors. Orange, purple, and pink danced across her form, tangled in her hair that fought the wind, and her brown eyes sparkled to rival the first stars showing up for work in the night sky. Her beauty completely disarmed him, and before he could stop himself, he started to spill his truth.

"You ever notice how tired–"

"Agh! Fuck!" a voice shouted. It sounded like Skavin. 

Tilly pulled her gaze from Murk, her fingers untangled from his and the moment was lost. A group gathered around Skavin. There was a scuttle to their movements that looked like panic. Serious looks on all their faces. Skavin clutched at his arm, stiff and confused. Bleeding.

"Skavin?" Tilly said.

"Tilly! Come here!" said Pesh, a lanky boy with messy brown hair. Tilly ran to him. Murk followed, licking his lips to savor what was left of her taste. As they approached, he caught the lanky boy's eyes drift to Tilly's dress; her nipples were still hard.

In a sudden jolt of excitement, the others burst into shouts. Ferz ripped his shirt off and flexed his pecs, then bumped chests with Ilyna, his years-long girlfriend and the only one in town with muscles to rival his. Skavin's eyes were wide with joy, even as he held his stiff left arm that was now dripping with blood.

In a spike of testosterone, Ferz picked up a shard of busted clay and squeezed it into dust with one hand. The veins in his forearm bulged as his muscles clenched. A raw display of power and dedicated strength. Tilly pretended not to notice.

"Skav, what's happening?" Murk asked.

"Did you see it?" Skavin gritted his teeth through waves of pain, but managed a smile as he spoke. Murk gave a confused look. "The whiptail!"

"Whiptail? Where?"

"In the pile!"

Skavin angled his bleeding arm at the gigantic pile of broken pottery. The big dumb heap of failure that Tilly and Pesh supplied with ruined pots every week. It was haphazard and wild, full of small crevices and pockets of air, yet stable in its own way–taller than either of them. An absolute haven for creepy crawly critters to hide and breed, but this time–

"A whiptail jumped right out and tagged me. Big one too! The stinger was the size of my fist!"

Ferz grabbed the wooden practice sword at his hip. Not like the switches Murk and Skavin carried around, Ferz and Ilyna were a year older, a level higher, and unlike the others, still had living parents capable of gifting them heirlooms. Though still wooden, their weapons didn't break against dummies. They carried them everywhere. "We're getting it. Did anyone see where it went?"

"That side right there!" Skavin pointed at the base of the pile, "I almost had him! They're fast as hell."

Ferz counted the group of them. "We're six total. That's . . ." his faced wrinkled as he mashed numbers together in his head. " . . . like 20 exp for each of us? Is that right? That's almost a month of hitting the dummy!"

"20 exp. Damn!" said Ilyna, tying her long brown hair into a ponytail, "we can level tonight!"

"It's not 20," Murk said, the others turned toward him, eagerness on their faces. These were rare moments, when they knew he had some insight that would benefit them, when his extra cognition worked in their favor. He cleared his throat and stood a little taller. "Whiptails give 100, right? That's what Pesh's dad used to say. So 100 divided by the six of us is more like–" Murk struggled with the numbers too. He brought out his fingers to help count, but he was drawing a blank. "I don't know exactly, but it's less than 20. Think like, 17." It was the best he could do to describe the concept of a repeating decimal point number.

"If it's more than one it's worth catching the bastard and ripping its tail off!" Tilly said. "You think one exp a day is slow with dummies? Try making urns all day. I'm lucky to get one or two a week!"

"Yeah, exactly!" said Pesh, "If we're close to leveling, that will make a huge difference. Tilly, can you imagine 5 more dexterity *right now!?*"

Ferz smiled, his teeth yellow. "Five more strength!" Ferz gave Skavin a high five. Skavin's blood-soaked arm splattered with the gesture. Skavin winced and grabbed it again, applying pressure to ease the pain. 

"Are you okay to fight, Skav? Whiptails can kill," Murk said, "You're lucky it got your arm and not your chest."

Ferz flexed again, and let out a grunt intended to inspire reverence in his advanced form. "Whiptails are no match for us, Murkesh. They can't break through this muscle. You'd know that if you had more than, what, ten?"

"You know I'm at 19, don't be a dick about it," Murk said, and Ilyna gave him a knowing look, "and strength doesn't stop a stinger. It'll pierce right through, especially with how fast those things spring out. You need high vitality for passive resistance like that."

Ferz laughed. "The rest of us can handle the big scary whiptail if you're afraid of it."

"I'm just a level behind you, there's barely a difference!"

Ilyna, clicked her tongue, tying her long dark hair behind her head into a ponytail. "But there is a difference."

With that, they peeled away to search for the hiding beast. Skavin kicked at the pile, while the others started grabbing pieces and tossing them away. 

Murk kept Tilly for a moment. "We're never gonna trap this thing. None of us have and real speed except for you."

"And Pesh," she said.

"Right," Murk's brow furrowed at that, "Still. You're the fastest."

"Pesh is almost as fast as I am," she said, "He even has some strength from when you guys were kids. Honestly, if anyone's gonna catch it, it's gonna be him."

"We shouldn't try to catch it, that thing's dangerous. We need to kill it," Murk turned to watch Pesh for a moment as he flung shards of broken clay around. His hunched posture, rope-like hair, and greasy face forced a cringe. "He shouldn't even be here. We'd get a bigger share."

In their search, the others were starting to look beyond the pile, kicking over rocks and whacking the odd bush with their sticks. They were losing confidence already.

"If Pesh wasn't here, you would never catch it in the first place. So really, maybe he's is the one who should decide who gets the exp and who doesn't."

Murk turned red in the face. She saw the boy's eyes on her, she knew it bothered Murk. She did this to hurt him. "Pesh doesn't dictate anything about me."

"Yeah?" Tilly said, "He told me you'd say that." She left him and bounded up to the top of the pile of busted clay. She was nimble and lithe, bounding from footing to footing like a desert squirrel. Her deftness made his heart pound in his chest, while also inspiring a heave of jealousy that sat in his stomach like a stone. 

Murk turned away from admiring her form and surveyed the desert. The whiptail was much too fast and they were completely unprepared for a chase. 

"Everyone come here."

Skavin looked back first, then the others.

"I have a plan."

---

"This isn't gonna work," Ferz said.

"Ssh, you're gonna ruin Murk's plan," Skavin said.

"They don't even have ears! How can they hear me?"

"I don't know, Ferz, but I'm sure they can still hear your loud ass. Ahh!" Skavin clutched his arm. A bulb was starting to form, pale and thick like a callous.

"We gotta get you some help, Skav," Murk said.

"I'm not missing this. I'll be fine. Let's get the little bastard." He clenched his fist around the wound, the blood gave a sticky, squelching sound that gave Murk the willies.

Murk looked out across the desert landscape–silvery moonlight that kissed the silhouettes of bushes and rocks, pulling them out from an otherwise pitch black canvas. Tilly, Pesh, and Ilyna stood at the ready, Ilyna's muscled shape clearly discernible from the other two. He glanced to Skavin and Ferz beside him at the top of the pile. They were ready. He raised an arm. The signal. 

Ilyna's patch of blackness gave the slightest of nods, then the three on the ground approached the pile in an arc. They closed in, giving the whiptail nowhere to run unless it wanted to fight its way through.

"*Shambra* bless us," Ferz said, he and Skavin turned to Murk, waiting for the next phase.

Murk's face twisted. He took that stone of jealousy in the pit of his stomach, crushed it into rage, then pulled it out in one long bellow. The others joined him, Yretian lions roaring in the night. They started to jump up and down on the pile, trying to break as much as possible and crush whatever was hiding at the bottom. Their weight shifted at the top as pockets beneath them collapsed.

"It's working!" Ferz said, his expression a mixture of surprise and genuine joy.

"Keep going! Squish the bastard!" Murk said.

Pesh and Tilly scanned the mound of clay from the ground, watching for any signs of whiptail movement. Then, a patch of clay burst outward. 

"There he is!" Tilly said. She jumped in front of it, cutting off any hope of escape. The thing bolted from side to side with the speed of a jumping spider. A twitchy, oversized beetle looking thing with shaggy hair and a scorpion stinger curling up over its back. It was the length of Murk's foot, much larger than anticipated. In a desperate maneuver, it darted away from Tilly, only to find Ilyna poised and ready. 

Ilyna opened her arms to accept the whiptail, grinding her teeth to focus her mirth. It jumped, faster than a buzzing fly, and tagged her on the bicep. Ilyna shrieked as her arm exploded in a gout of blood. Reflex guided her, and she swung her fist into the creature from the side. There was an uncanny *crunch* sound–like shattering an exposkeleton–and the whiptail dropped to the ground. It bounded back up, woozy, and wobbled around in circles. The stinger dripped blood.

"Ilyna!" Skavin bounded down the pile toward her. Murk and Ferz followed.

Pesh leapt onto the whiptail and squeezed it. "I got it!"

It started to flail around, clearly disoriented from the punch, as it tried to sting Pesh. Rather than rocketing out like a spring, now it flopped around. Drunk with pain. Still, those shaggy hairs made the thing slick, and it wiggled out of Pesh's grip.

"I don't got it!"

Ferz cupped his hands and jumped at it, but caught only dirt in his mouth as the whiptail flopped out of his path. Murk jumped at it too, but he shuffled like an old man, and the whiptail avoided him easily. "We're so s–"

"You're all so slow!" Tilly said. She balanced herself, studied the motion of the stumbling whiptail, matching the way it shifted its weight to and fro, then sprang forward. 

"No, Tilly! Don't grab it! Just guide it to one of us!" Murk said.

Her hands wrapped around the thing's' nasty little torso. But it wiggled and writhed until what little strength she had failed. She was able to hook a finger around one of its legs, and turned herself into a human anchor as it tried to dash away. Tilly screamed as the thing pulled her. A shocking amount of torque in that little guy.

Ilyna dropped to the ground, clutching her bleeding arm. Skavin lowered with her, abandoning the care he had for his own wound. He squeezed her bicep to apply pressure. "We've gotta get you some help!"

Her eyes were wide. The pain of the whiptail's sting a surprise. She looked at Skavin, desperate, confused. He gentled a hand on her cheek. "Am I gonna lose my arm?" she asked.

The whiptail made short bursts as its strength returned. With each surge, it pulled Tilly along. An inch at first, then as much as a foot. 

"Get up you idiots and kill this thing!" she said as her head dragged in the dirt.

Ferz and Murk stood up, forming a wall. "Don't worry, Tilly. If he comes any closer, we got him for sure!" Ferz said.

With that, the whiptail turned and dashed the other way. Tilly's back arched as it pulled her away, amplifying her screams as her body took the shape of a wind instrument.

"Shit!" Ferz said. Dust was starting to kick up everywhere. "We're gonna lose it!"

Tilly's grip slipped. It was free now and gaining strength. A gap opened in the Yretian's defense, and the whiptail moved for it. Pesh leapt over to block the way, slamming his ribs into the desert floor. There was nowhere for the thing to run. Gears turned in the little thing's head as it made a calculated decision . . .

It darted toward Ilyna and Skavin. The weakened and bleeding portion of the human wall. In one magnificent stride, it sprang upward. Six spindly legs spread outward. The stinger primed to strike. Shaggy hair fluttered in the night air. It broke through the dust, driving little eddies in its wake. The whiptail landed on Ilyna's chest. Her sternum positioned like a target.

"No!" Skavin reached forward, his speed boosted by pure adrenaline, and blocked the sting with his hand. The sharpened hook punctured straight through his flesh, then ripped back out, bringing all manner of veins, tendons, and metacarpals along with it. 

Skavin pulled his hand back, shocked at the pain. The whiptail turned, then lunged for his face. Six little feet squeezed his head, and in an instant, the stinger plunged into the center of Skavin's forehead.

Murk watched as Skavin's body went limp. "Skav!"

His friend collapsed into a heap of dead weight. The whiptail continued to strike the top of his skull, temples, and forehead again and again. Any point within radius as it swung its tail, all with blinding speed. Blood flung from the tail in a cloud of violence.

Murk sprinted forward and dove, catching the whiptail with a strong grip. It flailed it's tail, trying to sting him in the wrists and forearms, but the blood-slicked hook kept sliding around. Murk cried out with rage and squeezed harder. Harder. He concentrated the pressure. More. More. His muscles ached, his veins popped. The whiptail flailed and flailed as its body began to bulge. Then, with a satisfying *rip*, the whiptail split in two.

{Young Whiptail: 20 exp}

{You have reached level 16!}

{You have 5 attribute points to distribute}

---

"What's there to think about? I already dumped them all into strength."

Ilyna's mother wrapped her daughter's bicep with a fresh bandage. It smelled delicious, some kind of cactus marinated with oil and herbs. Later that evening, she would grill up the strips for Ilyna to eat. Yretian medicine didn't make a ton of since to Murk–or anyone else–but it was pretty tasty.

It had been a week since Skavin died, or as the others remembered it, the day they caught the whiptail. Murk hung his head. He hadn't slept. He hadn't hit the dummy. Something about beating a lifeless sack of pebbles brought him back to that night. It had shaken him. Not just the loss of a friend, but mortality now hung over him, over the village. Even if the other's didn't feel it like he did.

Yret was an uneventful, but ultimately safe place. They owned nothing worth stealing, and no real predators lived in the area. Whiptails were a rare sighting, and they only fought back when cornered. Skavin would be the first to die from a whiptail attack as far back as anyone could remember.

Murk adjusted in his seat as a draft blew through the walls of Ilyna's home. "Don't you think it could have gone different?"

"Of course," Ilyna said. "I think about that every day. If I had only hit the bastard with more force, Skavin would still be alive. That's never happening again."

"That's not what I mean."

"Murk, you have a chip on your shoulder because you're the weakest one of us out there. You're always trying to make it sound like your lack of strength *isn't* a weakness–but that's literally what it is. You're' weak."

Ilyna's mother tsk'd. "Shame what your mother did to you."

Murk's shoulders fell. He wanted to crawl inside of himself and never come out. Ilyna saw.

"Murk, numbers are numbers. Your mom threw off your rithm, and now you need to make up the difference. I don't understand how you still think you can strategize around this." Her mother finished wrapping Ilyna's bicep. Ilyna squeezed a fist and flexed. Her strength nearly returned in full. With her injured arm she lifted a hand to her cheek and something flashed behind her eyes. "I'm never going to fail my friends again. No one will ever say I was too weak." She looked him up and down, the words 'you are too weak' clearly imprinting on him.

"If Skavin had a higher vitality, he might have made it."

Ilyna scoffed. Her mother actually turned toward him, offended. 

"Vitality!?" her mother said.

"You can't blame your mom for that, Murk. That's all you."

"What does that mean?" Ilyna's mother asked. She looked back and forth between the two of them, not getting an answer.

"Ferz obviously won't listen to me, but I thought you would. That thing got you too! It almost killed you, Ilyna!"

"Which never would have happened if I had punched it into a thousand pieces in the first place." Her expression scrunched, confused at why her pure logic and sound reason needed any explanation.

"What is this about vitality!?" Ilyna's mother asked again.

"And what? That's the only enemy you'll ever face? What about the next one or the next one? How could you possibly be strong enough punch everything that wants to kill you?"

"Who's coming for me, Murk? Orcs?"

Ilyna's mother was turning desperate. She patted her daughter on the head. "What does it mean, Illy? What did Murk do?"

"I just think . . ." Murk sighed, "We could do better if we had balanced rithms instead of throwing everything at one ability."

"What did you do, Murkesh?" Ilyna's mother asked. Her eyes bored into Murk and her jowls twitched.

"Pumping strength is going to get us killed, it's stu–"

"It's what, Murk?" Ilyna asked. "What do you have to say? Go ahead and say it. Take that extra cognition point and wave it all around the room like you're some kind of genius and we're all morons."

"It's stupid! You're being stupid!"

"There it is," Ilyna stood and turned away, suddenly interested in dusting off the pots lined against the walls.

Ilyna's mother got right in Murk's face, "What did you DO!?"

There was a moment. Murk dropped his head again. Ilyna broke the silence.

"At level 12, Murk put two points into vitality."

"You did what!? You were already a point behind! Now you're . . ." she took out her fingers and counted them. Got confused, then counted them again. ". . . now you're three behind!"

"Two behind," Murk said.

Ilyna's mother's mouth fell into a stressed frown. "Two, three, behind is behind! Why did you do that, Murk! You didn't need to do that!"

Murk got up. Ilyna's mother nagged at him as he crossed the room and left through their front door–which was less a front door and more of a front curtain-on-a-string. Then as he walked away, she yelled at him through the missing slats in the walls of her home. Her voice competed with the strength of the wind, it moved him, pushed him away.

He focused on his status.

{Strength: 18}

{Dexterity: 0}

{Vitality: 6}

{Cognition: 6}

{You have 5 attribute points to distribute}

His heart quickened and he ran hot. Sweat percolated in his armpits and at his hairline. The sound of Ilyna's mother screaming banged on his eardrums. He closed his eyes and focused on vitality. When he opened them, he saw the change. 

{Vitality: 11}

He had ripped the social contract to shreds. He was taboo. Unclean. He'd never catch up to the others. But he had a new goal.

"Never die," he said. 

"Ever."

---

The sun was setting, serving the sky like a delicious sherbert. Blushing tangerine and cool blue hues cast Yret in a cozy light. Murk sat just outside of town, hugging his knees and staring at the dirt between his feet. His eyes had tasted that beautiful sunset sky in this desert thousands of times. And in one, stupid, sudden moment, Skavin, his best friend, had been excused from that privilege forever.

Visions of Skavin's limp body flashed before him. One minute full of purpose and drive, the next, a puppet with strings cut. 

Murk pressed at a spot in the center of his forehead. He didn't know why, but for the last few days he had been doing that. Flicking his fingers and tapping the spot where Skavin had been hit. He tried to simulate what it must have been like. Was their pain, or had it been instant? would higher vitality make his bones stronger? Could he have survived the sting with what he had now?

Had he made a terrible mistake?

One thing was certain: the bone was harder now that he nearly doubled his vitality rithm. He couldn't tell if that was wishful thinking or reality.

A melody came to his ears, carried by the wind from the east. Voices. Deep and helplessly out of tune. The sound grew louder by the moment.

Murk stood up. His tip-toes gave him another inch of height. He saw them. Bobbing over the rolling hills leading away from Yret. Large figures pushing a cart. No road guided them. They cut straight across the desert, boldly cutting a path straight to Yret, likely drawn by the glow of the kilns. East of Yret led across the unsettled frontier lands of Tellia until orcish warbands roamed freely. There was no border or fortress, whatever the tribes of Zja could patrol, they claimed. It was only distance and lack of water that kept Yret safe from the monsters. 

Nothing from that direction could possibly be any good.

And yet, the song didn't sound orcish to his ears. It was familiar even. Then he saw the blue and white banners of the Yirilian crown. Golden tassels flapped in wind. Giant poles, thicker than Murk's arm, rested against bannermen's shoulders, and they swayed with gusto as they walked. There were six in total. Two walking with banners and another four pushing a cart full off supplies. Murk could sense the booze in their steps and the jolliness of in their faces as they approached.

"Oy! Kid!" the biggest one said. A massive man wearing fine clothes and a glorious plate of armor on his shoulders. The armor was ornamented on the top with massive shapes that gave him an intimidating silhouette, the joints were scaled so they could freely periscope in and out as he moved his arms, and every piece was trimmed with gold inlay. Murk fixated on the piece, barely able to register that the man was calling out to him.

"Hey Kid! Oy!"

Murk snapped to. "Oh. Yeah?"

"Where are we?"

"Yret."

The man took a swig from a pale jug. A clear liquid splashed onto his face and trailed down his shirt, but he was too cheerful to care. "Yret? Never heard of it! But, I'll tell you this, young man," he took another swig, then tossed the jug aside. His eyes glittered, his cheeks puffed into rosy dollops of joy, and he grinned a full set of clean teeth, "You're welcome!"

The others cheered, then joined in a chorus of *you're welcomes*. Never quite saying the words in sync with one another, but together nonetheless. They all took swigs from similar pale jugs, clinking their drinks together and laughing. The big one with the shining teeth eventually shushed them.

"You're welcome!" he said again, this time with a gentlemanly bow. He punctuated the gesture with a noise the seemed to escape from his very soul, a sound so deep it must have called upon his ancestors to complete the resounding volume–a long and dramatic burp. When he recovered, he struck himself in the chest with a fist and puffed air out of his cheeks. "We need a place to stay the night, kid. How does Yret feel about entertaining heroes for an evening?"

"Fine, I guess."

"Fine! He guesses!" the big man cheered, the others joined him in chorus again.

"Where did you come from?" Murk asked, "There's nothing that direction for weeks. And even then, it's just–"

"–Orcs?" the big man said, "Not anymore, kid!" He grinned again, "You're welcome."

"You're soldiers," Murk said, "You fought the orcs?"

"And won!" the big one reached into the cart and pulled out a handful of something, then threw it at Murk's feet. Murk stared, unable to process what he was seeing. They looked like chopped vegetables, or–

"–Orc fingers!" the big soldier said.

"Gross!"

"Go ahead and have those, we've got plenty!"

"Why would I want orc fingers?"

"Bounty office pays one gold per finger. Sometimes two for a thumb!"

"Two for a thumb!" one of the soldiers in the back of the cart said, holding up a lifeless green appendage.

"Still not sure that ones a thumb, Gendry," the big one said. He leaned in close to Murk and whispered, "in fact I'm sure it's a penis, but it's funnier if the bounty office tells him that." He pulled away and straightened his back. The hulking shoulder armor seemed weightless on his body. "We got barrels of 'em. And more importantly . . ." he smacked a jug and something sloshed around inside of it, "loads of beer!"

Another muscle-bound man jumped up onto the cart and popped a cork out of the jug. "Actually, I'm pretty sure it's just water, but the orcs put something in here that makes ya drunk!"

"You're welcome!" the others chorused again.

"Whatcha say you, kid?" the big one said, "Room in town for six more tonight?"

---

The six of them fit in perfectly. Although, it wasn't because the soldiers were particularly charming or graceful in the ways of Yretian culture, rather, the small collection of persons that called Yret home were so desperate for outside news, outside influence, outside recognition of ay kind, they were happy to shift into whatever shape such grand visitors required.

It didn't hurt that they possessed immense strength and immediately became the envy of Ferz and Ilyna, as well as the doting elders in town. 

"85 strength!? That's insane!" Ferz said. He'd been going to each one of them and asking endless questions. So far he'd discovered each of them had higher strength than him, but that was expected–he was still a teenager after all–what's more was they had higher strength than anyone in the history of Yret. He'd learned their names and where they were from. Mostly the capitol region of Yiril. Murk couldn't–or wouldn't–keep the details straight. 

"So what level are you then?" Ferz asked the big one.

The big one clapped him on the shoulder, shoved a horn of orcwater into his chest, and told him to stop asking personal questions. "Constant number talk is giving me a headache," he said. 

Another soldier–one who had brought out a fiddle at some point and hadn't stopped playing–chuckled that their captain wasn't always so rude. It was the weeks of endless desert catching up to him. "Leave the poor peasants alone, they're curious!" he said.

Ferz looked back and forth between them, a goofy smile on his face the whole time. He was smitten. The soldiers measured his biceps and stoked his ego. They even let him try on some heavy greaves, but Ferz couldn't lift his legs with them. 

Ilyna was also having trouble hiding her admiration. However, she was more successful in capturing their sense of professorship rather than cheap spectacles. They told her about Yiril, to which Murk listened closely. A place of green, full of flowers, warm weather, and breezes that brought fragrant scents up from the tropics. They talked of steak and colorful vegetables, dresses and parties. A whole world beyond the horizon that they could never imagine. 

Ilyna's mother was the one to cut off their descriptive serenade. She told them about the pottery industry in Yret. How it was built on tradition and produced the finest crafts in all the kingdom. How the potters devoted their lives to developing precision and dexterity, while the claypitters built strength to pull clay out of the ground, haul it, and store it. Even during the dry season, they worked on target dummies all day to raise expy.

"Expiate," said one of the smaller soldiers, it could have been Gendry, but Murk thought their names and faces all felt the same. The Yretians looked on in wonder, clearly not understanding the word. "It means an atonement. A penance. It's a noun." 

Ferz's face was blank, confusion leaping out of his expression more than anyone else. But, he spoke for everyone. Expy was only and ever just 'exp' spoken aloud. It didn't mean something else, it meant 'exp' all on its own. It fell out of dead stuff, entered your body, made you stronger, and put numbers in your head. Invisible, but very much real. 

It was Murk who finally spoke up. "Expiate. Can you explain that?"

"Sure," the soldier stopped his fiddling and downed a horn of orcwater, then rested the fiddle back under his chin. He didn't play, but seemed more comfortable with it sitting there. "The world has a finite amount of resources. Of life force. And all of it is in perfect balance. When we kill a creature, that life force expels and hangs in limbo, creating imbalance. Their essence must be added back into circulation, so the gods push it into those responsible. You atone for the sin of taking life by harboring the life force of those you kill. Problem solved."

The Yretians looked at him like he had told them the sky was green.

"But," Ferz scratched his head, the two rocks inside his skull banging together as best they could, "Then why do we get expy from dummies?"

"Ah!" the fiddler said, "Accidental deaths."

"What?" Ilyna asked.

"Not every death has a responsible party. So where does the expiate go? It distributes to the rest of the world. Flying on the wind in search of those who help themselves. Training. Study. Craft. But this is a horribly inefficient method of gaining any true abilities. You're scraping the bottom of the barrel for crumbs! The only way to truly level is to kill something worth killing."

The Yretians knew that already. They expected to reach level 22 by the time they were too old to endure the workouts. With hard work and a little bit of luck, they might reach 24. Pesh's grandfather was the highest level in recent memory, and he was only 25, thanks mostly to a migration of whiptails that had crossed through Yret in his youth. 

Still, this explanation of 'expiate' didn't quite add up to Murk. He couldn't fill the holes, or even rightly identify that there were holes to begin with. But something in the description made him think, and he didn't like that.

"So what level are you?" Pesh asked the fiddler.

The big one cut him off before he could answer. "You might as well ask the weight of a man's right testicle, or exactly how low on the chest you can find his third nipple." He shook his head, downing another gulp.

"I don't mind, captain! They're excited. This isolated little village, when was the last time anyone over level 30 even visited Retch?"

"Yret," Murk said. 

"Isn't that what I said?" the fiddler dragged a bow across the strings and the instrument sang out a gentle harmony to punctuate the retort. Murk tried to correct him again but was drowned out by the sound. "Anyway, like I said, I don't mind telling you that I'm level 41." The other soldiers looked at the man like he'd stripped naked in the middle of the room.

Ferz and Ilyna froze, the number a splash of ice water. They knew leveling worked differently when there were actual resources to throw at it, Yret had an embarrassing lack of resources that severely limited advancement, everyone was in furious agreement to that fact. But level 41? Ferz had mocked Murk for their one level disparity, but 41? The couple was stunned. They slowly turned toward one another as something electrified between them. Murk watched Ferz grab Ilyna's thigh in some attempt to vent whatever feelings were boiling up inside. 

These were proper soldiers from the capitol. They were specimens of human excellence, and their captain wore an extravagant armor that probably cost more than the entire village saw in a decade. They were happy, healthy, capable, and commanded the respect and attention of everyone in the room. 

The fiddler left them to their shock and started up a jaunty little tune. The room was buzzing with energy, swirling with envy and a lust for numbers. Not just the teenagers, but the elders too. Everyone who made Yret home had stopped by to meet the travelers, heard what they had to say, drink their strange orcwater, and bare witness to their barrels full of fingers and other odd trinkets. 

Only Tillop was missing.

"I'm gonna find Tilly," Murk said.

Pesh wiped a splash of orcwater from his lips and nodded toward the back of the room. "Found her."

Tilly squeezed between the retinue of soldiers, her petite frame sandwiched by their hulking bodies and broad shoulders. They didn't see her. She was like a mouse between the walls. She twisted her waist to navigate the shrinking space. One man reached behind himself to scratch his back and accidentally nudged at her breast with his hardened forearm. Her face flushed. She stretched her fingers outward, ostensibly to alert them of her presence, but there was a linger in the touch that felt like something more.

The soldier turned and saw her, apologized, and handed her a horn. She accepted, her face red as a beat now, and rushed toward Murk. 

She grabbed him by the neck and whispered in his ear, "Take me somewhere."

That somewhere was a spot between the kilns. A pocket of warmth on a chilly high-desert night. The fires were always going, which turned the structures into heaters, big enough to block the wind along with any prying eyes. It wasn't exactly privacy, but living in such a tight community meant you had to take what you could get.

Tilly pushed Murk against the heated stone and pushed her tongue into his mouth. Her chest pushed up against him, bringing with it an intense arousal that stiffened in his pants. Her dress bunched as his length rubbed against her, and she grinded her hips to encourage more.

"You're so strong," she said. "I want you to lift me up."

He grabbed her ass and lifted, spreading her cheeks to perch her on top of his cock. She melted into him with a deep moan, wrapping her legs around his waist. The air between them heated as she rocked her hips along his length, and pulled his mouth into hers. This wasn't a modest kiss stolen in the company of others. This was passion, raw and unbridled. She devoured him. The growing wetness between her legs lathered him up. Her fingers traced his chest, down his belly, and into his pants. Her gentle fingers, so precise and delicate, wrapped around his shaft and pulled upward. 

"You're so hard for me, Murkesh." She said, stroking him. Her tongue found his ear, and his body vibrated as she sent a deep moan into his skull.

Her fingers performed impossible feats as she pumped her fist, both working his shaft and pulling her panties aside in smooth incremental motions. She adjusted herself, positioning her clit to rub against the head of his penis. She moaned again. The breath against his ear sending him to places he'd never been.

His clunky fingers squeezed her waist. The impossibly thin fabric was a second set of skin that teased him, bunching and rising to reveal the smoothness of her legs beneath. He pulled at it until his big dumb hands found purchase on her flesh, then he squeezed. 

"Tell me," she said, "tell me your strength."

"18."

Her body tensed beneath him. Only a moment. Then she started to thaw and lean into him again. 

She kissed him on the neck. "I get it. You haven't spent your points yet," her lips smacking between the words. "That's even better." She pushed her hips into him hard, grinding like a woman gone mad. "I want to be on you when you do it. I want to feel your body grow. I want it so bad."

He squeezed her ass. Harder than he meant to. She yelped, then melted into him.

"Your hands are so strong. I want to feel them even more. Squeeze me, Murkesh," she whispered into him, "Break me."

Her body was wet clay in his hands. Creamy and smooth, firm, but malleable. Her skin polished under the caress of his thumbs. Shaping, refining. He moved up her dress, exploring upward as he kissed her, then stopped at her breasts to tease her nipples.

"Do it! Do it! Feed your strength!" Her nipples hardened at his fingertips and the shlick against his cock intensified. She was gushing with anticipation. "Do it," she was trembling, "Do it, Murk!"

It was one thing to play into her strength fetish, but another to mislead her. 

Murk squeezed her tight. "I can';'t."

"Please, Murk," she said, "do it for me now."

"I spent the points," he said, diving into a kiss as fast as he could.

She tensed up again. This time she stayed that way. Her body halted, all passion washed away, and left her feeling clammy in his hands. 

"What do you mean? You were at 18 before the whiptail, you should be 23 now." She slid off of him, planting both feet on the ground. Her pelvis still pushed into his, but she leaned away, anger and disgust fighting for control of her face.

"I put them into vitality."

She jerked away. It was as if he had coughed into her face. "What? Vitality?" Tension jumped into him as he watched her deft fingers pull the dress back down. 

"Yes, after what happened to Skav, I thought about–"

She slapped him hard across the face. "Vitality!?"

Murk's vision jumped as the realization of what she'd done settled in. It wasn't the pain of being hit, in fact, he wasn't sure he'd felt anything at all. The simple loudness of smacking of her hand against his face was the best indicator of how hard she'd hit him. It rang in his ear, shaking out all the ecstasy. But there was no indication of harm. No tingles, no soreness. He lifted a hand to the spot instinctually and depressed his skin with his fingers, probing for pain. He could feel them, as sensitive to the touch as ever, but as he pressed harder the feeling dulled away. 

When he looked up again, she was gone. She'd tell someone. Everyone. And the cycle of judgement would start all over again. But this wasn't one point lost because of a decision made by his mother, this was a conscious, rebellious decision made with full awareness of the consequences. Yret depended on him, and he'd betrayed their trust. No muscle meant no clay, no clay meant no pottery, no pottery meant no trade, no trade meant no life.

His selfish decision to live forever, whatever that meant, had doomed them all.

---

Torchlight gleamed off of the soldier's armor. The horns they drank from were tiny in their hands. Murk felt weak, small, unworthy. Tilly's laughter punched him in the gut, yanked his soul from his body, as she giggled at something one of the travelers said. Her snaggle tooth reflected flame from the torches and his tongue ached. The weight in his stomach grew as he watched her hand slide under the man's elbow. She gave his arm the slightest little squeeze.

Murk downed another horn of orcwater. He was getting sloppy, not bothering to take his drink back to the table and sit with it. He dunked into the barrel, lifted, and chugged. Fiddle music smeared in and out of awareness. The room twisted as conversation happened on all sides at once. One moment he was standing by himself, another he was taking a piss outside, and another he was retching in the corner. Vignettes of orc fingers, broken pots, the solider's perfect teeth, and Skav sharing a grilled cactus with Ilyna flashed in and out of consciousness. 

He woke up between the kilns. The potters were firing away and not being quiet about it. The sun  branded him, already sitting directly overhead.

Murk grabbed his head, expecting a hangover, but he felt . . . fine? He had been suspicious that  'orcwater' was some stupid name for a liquor the soldiers had found. But it may have actually been more like water after all. If anything, he felt hydrated. More than a desert rat had any business feeling.

He caught a look from Pesh who was loading a kiln with firewood. It was the very same kiln where, only hours earlier, Tilly had teased him mercilessly. Until ending it with a slap across the face. 

"Last of the clay today, Murk."

Murk squinted up at him and nodded.

"Only had enough to get halfway through the dry season." He pushed the firewood in with a harumph, anger forcing him to bite his lower lip.

"Yeah, I know."

"Because we never pull enough clay when there's clay to be pulled."

Murk tilted his head. He didn't remember seeing Pesh down beside the river, pulling up heavy sheaves of clay, hauling jugs of river water for slaking, then transporting endless trips of soaked materials to the pottery stations. Stations where Pesh sat all day, working his hands in a highly suggestive manner while making eyes at his girlfriend. "We?"

"Yes, Murk. We."

"Oh I must have missed you down there, Pesh. By the river or swinging at a dummy all day in the beautiful sunshine."

"That's because I do what needs to be done. Here. None of the elders are nimble enough for this work anymore, there's only Tilly. With the rest of you we *should* have enough power to supply the two of us with clay, year-round. But that's never happened."

"Because I'm missing a couple points of strength, Pesh!? Yret is gonna fall apart because my mom made a mistake? Go on and blame her because she's not here to defend herself. Because that's all your capable of."

"It has made all the difference, Murk," he said. His body inflated with righteous spite. "Your mom ruined you, but it didn't have to be that way. You were so desperate to correct the problem that *you* found a way to make it destroy you forever! You should have forged ahead. You should have ignored the lack of vitality and pumped strength like you were supposed to. And now this." 

Murk let out a sigh. He supposed if this was the worst of the consequences, he'd be fine. He'd been chewed out before.

"You'll never be as strong as Ferz or Ilyna. You'll never pull your weight, because you're scared."

"The flu, Pesh! That was the end of her! Here one day, gone the next. And she had no more vitality than you. Than any of you!" Murk got to his feet and dusted the dirt from his clothes. "We're doing this wrong. We're weak, and stupid, and slow, and if anything is going to kill this town, it's the way you *think* about problem solving." A moment passed between them. "Don't think, actually."

"Don't you understand Murk? Aren't you supposed to be the smart one?" Pesh grabbed a long iron rod and started stoking the fire with it. The violence he put into shocked Murk. "You think you've got it bad, but I switched course right in the middle. Now I'm too weak to pull clay, and too clumsy to make anything of real value. You know nine out of ten of those pots in the shit pile are mine? I stick it out because Yret needs me and I'm the best we've got. Something greater than myself. But you . . . you're just selfish."

"You're telling me you break most of the clay we bring up?"

"That's not the point, Murk!"

"You talk about duty to Yret and *me* being selfish? You're wasting resources so you can be closer to Tilly all day." Murk glanced at the other kiln, curious as to why Tilly hadn't told them to shut up yet.

Pesh stabbed and stabbed at the firewood. He pulled away, staring at the flames. "I'll never have a legacy. Not like my dad. I'll never even catch up to Tilly. Not that it matters anymore." He wiped his face on his sleeve. "Get out of here, Murk. We're better off without you two."

"Two?" Murk realized the second kiln wasn't lit. Pesh had been making enough noise for two, but was, in fact, working alone. The two kilns had been in sync since the day Pesh left the claypitters, filling in for Ilyna's mother when her joints couldn't take it anymore. For the first time in years, they were out of sync. "Where's Tilly?"

Pesh rounded the kiln to the loading door. Murk ran around the other kiln, calling for her. He tried her hovel, his own, Ilyna's, and Ferz's. She wasn't there. She was gone. He found Pesh at the kiln again, shuffling pottery around in the chamber. 

"Pesh, where's Tilly? The soldiers' cart is gone too. Where are the soldiers?"

Pesh's lip trembled as he worked. His eyes glazed, and he wiped his face with a dramatic sniff.

At his feet, Murk found clear wagon trails leading out of town. Tracks of heavy boots on either side and behind. The seldom traveled road left nothing to hide–the soldiers were gone.

His mind raced and an ache seized his chest. "Did she? She didn't." His breathing got smaller and tighter. He doubled over, hands on his knees, and tried to catch his breath. It was so difficult. Like the air was running straight passed him, dodging, escaping capture. 

He found Pesh again. "What did she do?"

"They left before sunrise." Tears streamed down his face when he said it. He tried wiping them away with his shoulder, but was having a hard time reaching them with one of Tilly's giant pots in his hands.

Pesh was a prick, but he had to be telling the truth. He should be taunting Murk right now about the mistake he'd made, about how Tilly would never find him attractive now, that she'd run into his arms and they'd make sweet love between the kilns each day while he was out playing in the mud or swinging sticks at dolls. Instead, he was crying and working the kilns alone. 

Murk sat on the ground.

"Good. You're not running after her," Pesh said. "If you go down that road," he took a deep breath, "I'll kill you."

Murk processed the words, then slowly looked up at him. The lanky boy had grabbed the stoker again and was standing in a balanced pose. "You'll what?"

Pesh held the stoker upright. The tip of it glowed red hot. He adjusted his stance–nimble–then leveled the tool at Murk's head.

"She's 18. She can make her own decisions," Murk said.

"She decided she doesn't want anything to do with you," Pesh said. Something at the tip of the stoker sparked. An ember landed on the tip of Murk's nose.

Murk stood up with a jolt of energy. "Fuck! Asshole!"

"Stay back!" Pesh said.

Murk lunged at him. Pesh swung, slamming the hot end of the stoker into Murk's elbow. Murk deflected the pain and tackled Pesh to the ground. Their bodies rolled in the dust, the red hot stoker between them. With the struggle, it knocked around, tagging each of them in turn. It seared Murk's neck and shoulders, and left huge branding marks on Pesh's face that only got worse as he panicked to get away. 

They came to a stop, Pesh yelping at the pain. With his superior strength, Murk yanked the iron from Pesh's grip.

"Don't hurt me! I'm sorry!" Pesh said. He fell to the ground and scrunched up into a ball of fear. He clutched at his face and kept a bead on Murk's position, unsure which was the greater threat at the moment.

Murk tossed the stoker across the road and it clanged around in the dirt, kicking up dust as it cooled. He hissed as he inspected his elbow. The son of a bitch stung and was already forming a boil.

"Asshole," Murk said.

"No, it's you," another voice chimed in. Ferz. Murk turned to see him and Ilyna standing together, both with their wooden practice swords in hand. Ilyna spat on the ground at Murk's feet. 

"What is this?" Murk said. Pesh crawled behind them and looked out from behind their legs.

"You're the asshole, Murk," Ilyna said.

"Because I gave myself a little vitality!" The words came out much louder than he intended. But once they were out, the sarcasm felt justified. He was grown. Forced to care for himself since he was 12 years old. He could make his own determination as to what was the right use of his talents. The people around him had no say in any of this, and yet, here he was, the center of attention. Town pariah.

"You stole strength when you know how much we need it!" Ilyna said.

"Needed it." Ferz rounded Murk, placing himself between Murk and the village. Pesh scrambled to his feet and hid behind one of the kilns, nursing his face. "We're be better off without you."

Murk glanced around at the village. A strong wind could knock the whole thing over. "You. Are better off without . . . me?"

"There's not enough to go around, Murk," Ilyna said, "we need to ration our resources."

Ferz glared at him. "Tilly left. We're down one potter and Pesh is terrible at it. We won't make enough to sell, so we won't have enough to buy."

"So what? You're pushing me out of Yret? Exiling me?"

"Look at that brain work. Fascinating," Ferz said. "Don't make this harder than it has to be."

Murk started to say something. Anything. But the words didn't come. He knew he should fight against this, that Ferz and Ilyna were stupid teenagers, nothing they said mattered. There was a solution here. The elders could still produce some pottery, he wasn't useless in the clay pits no matter how much they thought he was. Losing Tilly and Skavin would not cause Yret to crumble. Hell, Tilly might even come running back once she realized how stupid her decision was.

"You're being st-"

A blinding pain coursed through Murk's head. White hot and overwhelming. He staggered back to see Ilyna standing with her wooden sword facing him. "Did you hit me with that?" he said.

"Say it again!" she said.

"What? St-"

She hit him again. An overhead strike that landed across his back. Murk cried out in pain. His 11 vitality paled against her tremendous strength. She hit him again and again. Each time the wood rang out with a satisfying clack. He raised his arms and caught her swing. Neither could pull away, but Murk was satisfied in at least making her stop the onslaught. Then Ferz struck him in the leg. 

Murk let go and backed away, reaching for his leg. Ferz pushed forward, thrusting the flat tip of the sword into his stomach. Murk collapsed, gasping for air as blood dripped from his mouth.

They watched him struggle. No remorse in their faces. Eventually, they spoke. "Get up, Murk. Leave."

He stood. If you could call it standing. Something pushed into his stomach. It was a bundle of rags Ilyna's mother was pushing into him. He hadn't even noticed her approach. She looked up at him, her eyes too distant for anger or sadness. 

"Skavin's things," she said, "to get you on your way."

Ferz fidgeted as Murk received them. He took a step closer to Murk, squeezing the stick-sword in his hands. "He's dead because of you. Go!"

Murk spat some blood out. "You were crazy about the whiptail, just like the rest of us."

"And I would have had it, until you made everyone do it your way! Leave!"

"Leave," Ilyna said. Her mother joined them and they all repeated the words. From behind the kiln, Pesh's little voice joined in too.

Murk observed them. In the moment he was not himself. He was an observer in the third person. The weight of their hatred was so palpable it had forced an out of body experience. Their faces were unrecognizable, these friends he had known since as long as he could remember. "Where am I supposed to go?"

"Start moving," Ferz said. He moved a step closer, the stick in his hands trembling with rage.

Murk turned west.

"Not west!" Pesh said, "Not toward Tilly!"

Murk glared at him. West was Yiril. West was opportunity. There was a reason the soldiers were heading that way. He didn't want to see Tilly. In fact, he didn't want to see anyone from this village ever again. "I've outgrown this place," he said, "maybe I was never part of it to begin with."

He unraveled Skavin's rags. There was a waterskin, some sandals, and a scratch of burlap with a flat painted face on it. "Herqlion," Murk said, "Skav never got a chance to put you back together." He slid the sandals onto his feet, hung the waterskin over his neck, and tucked Herqlion's face into his pocket.

"Not toward Tilly!" Pesh said again. Murk could hear Ilyna's mother smack him in the back of the head. Pesh didn't say anything else after that. 

The sun bore down. It was hot. Impossibly so. With no shade in sight. In spite of the injuries to his body, he couldn't help but feel refreshed as he left Yret. It was the commutation of a lifelong sentence. An exoneration. He focused on his status.

{Strength: 18}

{Dexterity: 0}

{Vitality: 11}

{Cognition: 6}

It was full of opportunity, full of potential. He wasn't going to simply never die. He was going to live. Thrive. Finally, his real life could begin.